Are you using Photoshop for this linework, Misj'?
For art I'm a Painter user. To me there are certain advantages to it over PhotoShop, since PhotoShop just isn't good for natural media. To contradict myself: I have seen people use it with fantastic results; it's just not (nor should be) the core business of Photoshop. It's an application primarily meant to edit, retouch, optimize, and manipulate photographs/images, and I use it quite a lot for that. So my opinion is not based on lack of understanding/knowledge about the application. It's purely based on a. my own preferred workflow, and b. the look I'm going for.
I've also looked into Sketchbook Pro which arguably has the best digital pencil; it's a great tool, but I could not find a real advantage of it within my workflow (that justified me buying it). However, at a 70 euro price-point, it's well worth to investigate if you want something to use for digital comics and such.
I've also looked at ArtRage in the past, but that was still quite an early version (I think it was still version 1 or an early 2), and it just wasn't worth it at the time (since I already was a Painter user). Painter is still much better then ArtRage, but on the other hand, ArtRage is 50 dollars, whereas Painter is 425 dollars (for the record, I bought it much cheaper through my workplace, but am not allowed to use it commercially). And is Painter - from what I've seen - really 10x better and thus validating the 10x price difference? - In some aspects the answer is yes, but for most people here the answer should be 'no', simply because they would be using maybe 10% of its capabilities (I have the same argument for Photoshop) so why not use a much cheaper application that has all the capabilities that are relevant to you?
So yeah, I use Painter, and can recommend it to everyone, except that I would tell you not to buy it. Buy Sketchbook Pro and ArtRage instead, and spend the rest of the money on a Wacom tablet (and yes, I would absolutely recommend a Cintiq).
ps. Also, some people feel the
UI of Painter is awful. I don't entirely agree with that, but I understand where it's coming from. This is a problem that Painter and Photoshop both have (although you won't see it once you're used to the quirks) simply because they've become quite bloated with a lot of options that don't really fit in a simple design. ArtRage and Sketchbook run the risk of this happening to them as well, simply because they need to add new features to either stay relevant in the market or to give users a reason to upgrade. Hopefully they can fit it within their (currently) simple UI design.
